Over the past two weeks, I’ve explored patterns that signal agile transformations have plateaued. Week 1 introduced Behavioral Lag, Value Lag, and Momentum Lag as three interconnected pressures. Week 2 examined Behavioral Lag—when practices change, but communication patterns don’t evolve. This week focuses on Value Lag, where organizational attention shifts from delivering business outcomes to conforming to process.
Value Lag emerges as the difference between doing it right and doing the right thing. Teams become focused on whether they’re following the methodology correctly rather than whether they’re solving valuable problems. Energy concentrates on process conformance—are we doing Scrum properly, are our ceremonies the right length, are we using the correct estimation technique—while the original purpose of agile adoption fades into background noise.
When Compliance Replaces Context
Value lag can typically be revealed by asking simple diagnostic questions. For example, I recently challenged a team to explain why grooming meetings had become a practice within a scrum.
Teams experiencing Value Lag respond with framework references: “Because Scrum says we should.” “It’s part of our process.” “Our coach told us to.” “Everyone does refinement.” These answers signal compliance thinking—we do this practice because the methodology prescribes it, not because we’ve examined whether it serves – or still continues to serve – our specific context.
Teams operating with a clear purpose respond differently: “So the team understands what’s coming and can estimate capacity.” “To break down work into chunks that fit our sprint length.” “To surface technical dependencies early so they don’t block us mid-sprint.” These answers demonstrate contextual understanding—we do this practice because it solves a specific problem – we are still having in our environment.
The distinction matters because context-blind compliance leads to cargo-culting. Teams implement practices that worked at other companies without understanding why they worked there or whether similar conditions exist here. They follow framework rules even when their context demands adaptation. Internal coaches, trained in specific methodologies, lack permission—or capability—to help teams question those frameworks when questioning becomes necessary.
Are We Measuring What Matters?
Value Lag appears clearly in what organisations measure and celebrate. Teams track velocity while leadership asks where the ROI went. Sprint completion rates get monitored while customer satisfaction declines. Story points get debated extensively while time-to-market increases.
The measurements themselves aren’t wrong. Velocity provides useful capacity planning information. Completion rates indicate team predictability. Story points enable workload comparison. The lag emerges when these process metrics become ends rather than means—when teams optimize for velocity increase without examining whether increased velocity delivers increased value.
Retrospectives provide another telling signal. Teams experiencing Value Lag discuss standup timing, estimation accuracy, ceremony attendance, tool usage. These conversations focus inward on process mechanics. Teams focused on value discuss customer feedback, delivery bottlenecks, technical debt impact on future capacity, misalignment between what’s built and what’s needed. These conversations connect process to outcomes.
Doing It Right vs Doing the Right Thing
Value Lag creates a particular organizational tension. Teams defend themselves by citing process conformance: “We’re following Scrum correctly.” “We completed all our sprint commitments.” “Our retrospectives happen every two weeks as prescribed.” Leadership responds with outcome concerns: “Then why aren’t results improving?” “Why does delivery still feel slow?” “Why are customers complaining about missing features?”
Both sides are correct within their frame of reference. The team is doing Scrum right. Leadership isn’t seeing business results. The gap exists because doing it right has become disconnected from doing the right thing. Process conformance has replaced problem solving as the primary success metric.
This disconnect often originates from well-intentioned sources. organisations invest in agile training and certification. They hire coaches with framework expertise. They want implementation done correctly. Over time, correctness becomes the goal rather than the mechanism. Teams get rewarded for following the process properly. Deviations from the framework get questioned. The implicit message becomes clear: conformance matters more than outcomes.
Understanding Your Context
Closing Value Lag requires returning to first principles. Why does this practice exist? Not in general—why does it exist for your team, in your context, given your specific constraints and goals?
When teams can’t answer this question, the practice is a candidate for elimination or radical modification. This diagnostic work surfaces uncomfortable truths. Practices that worked when the team was five people may not serve a team of fifteen. Ceremonies that made sense when the product was new may not fit a mature product with different dynamics.
The right external perspective helps organisations navigate these questions without triggering defensive responses about methodology correctness. Someone needs to facilitate conversations that examine whether practices serve current context, and that facilitation requires immunity from the organizational dynamics that make internal people reluctant to question the framework itself.
Teams need permission to adapt. More than permission, they need capability—the diagnostic skill to examine which practices serve their context and which have become compliance theatre. They need frameworks for making those decisions that go beyond “the methodology says” to “this solves this problem for us, while this other thing we’re doing doesn’t anymore.”
Next week explores Momentum Lag—why early transformation wins don’t automatically compound into sustained capability, and what organisations need to move from fragile gains to reliable improvement systems.
While recognizing Value Lag conceptually is straightforward, diagnosing which specific practices have disconnected from value delivery requires examining your system with fresh perspective. That’s where evidence-based coaching makes the difference—facilitating the uncomfortable questions about why practices exist and whether they serve current context. Explore how to reconnect your agile practices to business value delivery. Reach out today for a diagnostic conversation that examines which practices are driving outcomes versus which have become compliance theater.
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